The Accidental Salesman®

When you set up your business you never realised that you were going to end up being a sales person did you? Not a REAL sales person but an accidental sales person! Like many people in a similar situation you are ambitious and don’t mind doing the work. You just want some inspiration, guidance and tips for effective selling so you don’t need a personality transplant!

If this sounds like you then make sure you visit http://www.theaccidentalsalesman.com and sign up to The Accidental Salesman™ Club. It offers access to free online sales training and tips for effective selling. It is especially designed for accidental sales people who want to improve their confidence and competence in sales without being pushy.

When you join the Accidental Salesman™ Club I will send you with my complements:

• My e-book - “An Introduction to Soft Selling: How To Sell Without Selling”; and
• My audiobook - “How To Close More Sales (Without Being Pushy)”

As a member you will also get:

• Access to regular free online sales training
• Competitions to win free sales training e-courses and free coaching
• Regular uplifting articles and tips for effective selling

For example, club members tonight will be enjoying a tele-seminar on cold calling with cold calling trainer and expert Andy Preston

You will also receive advance notification of The Accidental Salesman™ School of Sales which will be available from early 2008 and will provide access to quality low cost and free online sales training designed specifically for accidental sales people. You also have my promise that you will not be bombarded with emails every 5 minutes. I hate that too!!

See you online!

Richard

I often get asked by accidental sales people for book recommendations and of course I seek to advise based on their current needs. When I am asked by a complete beginner I always recommend a book that is not about sales at all. In fact its about leadership “7 Habits of highly effective people”

If you want to be effective in sales (and I assume everyone does) then its a good place to start. Effective is different from efficient. Efficient is about doing the things right - developing and executing an efficient sales process. Its about, mechanics and technique. Effective is about doing the right things.

You can have the best sales technique in the world but if you are selling to the wrong people then you ain’t gonna sell much!!

The seven habits cover the following areas: 1. The need to be pro-active and take personal responsibility 2. The need to set goals first and then work towards them 3. The need to prioritise your time 4. The need to seek win-win deals 5. The need to understand others first 6. The need to be open to finding synergistic options rather than assuming your way is the best way 7. The need for continual personal development

All 7 of these habits are important in sales and following these in my early days of selling made a huge difference.

The book is not an easy one. It is about philosophy rather than techniques. Yet its our philosophy that acts like a compass and impacts everything we do. This book was one of the foundation stones of my brand of soft selling.

The thing that impressed me the most is that practically every high achieving sales person I have met has read it. The rest either have not heard of it or ‘Its on my reading list’

If effective is doing the right things then reading it sooner rather than later is probably the most effective thing any sales person, accidental or not, can do - in my very humble opinion! Best wishes

Richard

How effective is your sales strategy?

Accidental sales people that run a business and begin employ sales people should be careful to distinguish between natural raw sales talent and developed sales ability. I often go into small businesses to try and turnaround a sales person who has been hired with great promise only to end up being a disappointment.

Its a big gamble taking on a sales person, no matter what size of company you are. The financial impact to smaller businesses is greater so its more important to ensure you are not duped by someone who looks like a sales person, talks like a sales person, and behaves like you would expect a sales person to behave. That does not mean they can sell at the level you require and in the way you require.

The way candidates for a sales job approach a job interview is indicative of the way they sell.

I get involved in screening for business owners recruiting sales people and there was one person recently who claimed she had excellent closing skills and yet the screening tool I use suggested her closing skills were poor. Despite disputing this fact she discussed money before building value and did not seek to close. There was no disputing this lady had raw talent but she had not developed her skill. That comes from practice and making mistakes and recognising your mistakes. She had won lots of business in the past despite her poor closing skills. Just imagine what she could do if she focused on developing those skills. Unfortunately for her she was not professional enough to keep working on her craft and seeking to develop her talent. You should not interview sales people in the same way as other job applicants. For example:

• Give them a hard time (thats my job!!) and see how they respond.

• Ask them to sell themselves to you and see if they start asking questions or just pitch straight away.

• Tell them you only have 10 minutes for the interview and see if they seek to rearrange or whether they just crack up.

• Start talking about money and see if they seek to delay the money conversation until later

If they can’t handle it with you then there is no way they will handle it out in the real world selling on your behalf - and you are out of pocket by £20,000 on salary and recruitment costs, not to mention the opportunity cost of what business you could have achieved if you got the right person.

Best wishes

Richard

How effective is your sales strategy?

This is a discussion between Chantal Cooke of Passion for the Planet radio station and Richard White of Pro Excellence. Richard outlines to Chantal the stages of the sales process and why it is so important in terms of managing the sales of a business.

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